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A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

Haunted by Pedro Páramo

October 31, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

pedro paramo - juan rulfoPedro Páramo is the spookiest book I’ve read in a long time. Juan Rulfo created a world where the living interact with the dead in such a way that the reader can’t immediately be certain who is living and who is dead, which creates this suspicion that everyone is dead. Because the stories told about the lives of the dead are much more detailed and intricate than the stories of Juan Preciado, who is alive at the start of the book, the world of the dead seems more real than the world of the living.

Spoilers Ahead

Rulfo does not immediately tell the reader that most of the ghosts Juan encounters are in fact dead, but on some level you can tell. Simple lines like “I saw a woman wrapped in her rebozo; she disappeared as if she had never existed” are easily read over and dismissed. Eduviges has had word from Juan’s dead mother that he is coming—perhaps she is sensitive to the spirit world. Later, Eduviges tells Juan that Abundio with whom he traveled to town is in fact long dead. Then Damiana says Eduviges is long dead.

My mind started stripping away the stories I had rationalized for myself and I started to see everyone as dead. I was so immersed in this novel that when a mentally ill woman perched next to me on a bench at lunch, I kept looking in her eyes to see if she was a ghost.

Layering Experiences

The way Rulfo intersperses short sections with glimpses of characters interacting with Juan and then follows up with a second more detailed section (sometimes then a third or even fourth) of the character in the past makes these spirits feel as alive as Juan Preciado is at the beginning of the novel. When Juan dies midway through the novel, I already felt like the majority of the story was in the flashbacks. I felt like I had been gradually led deeper and deeper into the spirit world until I was left there like Juan was.

I loved this book. I can learn a lot from the way Rulfo managed information so that he only revealed what was absolutely necessary to draw me further into the story. The mystery and suspense he created by mentioning Pedro Páramo’s name, then mentioning he was Abundio’s father also, “living bile,” and then later telling us he was dead. I hadn’t met this character and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but he was immensely intriguing. I wondered if I could do something similar with Jacek in Polska, 1994 by building a reputation first and then introducing the character. I decided not to go that particular direction, but it definitely shapes a reader’s expectations. Every action Pedro Páramo took was tainted for me by Abundio’s preconceptions. Not that his actions, except in the case of his wife Susana were at all laudable.

Atmosphere and Mood

I also like what Rulfo did with the atmospheric descriptions. From walls “stained red by the setting sun” to lines like “February when the mornings are filled with wind and sparrows and blue light,” the description creates the mood of the story and impacts the reader’s understanding of it. The detail of the red stains recurs as Eduviges says goodbye to her sister who is also stained “by the dusk filling the sky with blood.” Whereas when Dorotea remembers the “February wind that used to snap the fern stalks before they died from neglect” and the “little whirlwinds [that swept] across the earth,” it feels like the air in Comala is still and has been for some time. There is no cleansing wind. There is no blue light. There is only heat and stillness and death. In annotating the book, it was actually difficult to decide which atmospheric details to choose because they were everywhere. However, Rulfo’s details blended so seamlessly into the story that they were at once omnipresent and sitting comfortably in the background.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Pedro Páramo from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Filed Under: Books, Latin America Tagged With: atmospheric detail, Mexican literature

Babel: Setting a Scene in Red Cavalry

May 6, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Red Cavalry Isaac Babel

Isaac Babel has a way with atmospheric detail. In several of his short stories in Red Cavalry, he uses descriptions of the setting to shape the reader’s experience and understanding of the tone of the story.

Crossing the Zbrucz

Perhaps the best example of this is the story we discussed in our advising group, “Crossing the Zbrucz.”  In this story a soldier rooms with a woman and her father and it turns out that the father (with whom he is to share a bed) was brutally slain earlier. The details Babel provides early on in the story presage the eerie scene. After describing the flow of the river, he writes, “An orange sun is rolling across the sky like a severed head….The odour of yesterday’s blood and of slain horses drips into evening coolness.” The detail is gruesome at best, but it prepares the reader for the mindset of the narrator. Death is so pervasive that the first thing he would liken the movement of the sun to is a severed head. He knows of the killings that occurred the day before and he recognizes the scent of them on the wind. Not every narrator would recognize the smell of day old death and fewer still would use it as an atmospheric detail.

Pan Apolek

Babel uses the same technique in several other of the Red Cavalry stories. In “Pan Apolek” he writes, “The scent of lilies is pure and strong, like spirit. This fresh poison is sucked in by the deep seething respiration of the kitchen range, deadening the resinous odour of the fir logs that are scattered about the kitchen.” This is the story of a painter, Pan Apolek, who uses the faces of local people for his paintings of saints. Apolek is commissioned to paint the church and he uses the faces of nonbelievers for some of Christianity’s most important figures causing a general uproar. His paintings are beautiful like the lilies, but they cut with a double edged sword. The “fresh poison” that Babel writes of is the heretical ideas that Apolek is spreading (e.g. that Jesus fathered Deborah’s child). Babel is saying that in spreading his subversive ideas through beauty, Apolek is able to infiltrate worlds he might not otherwise have access to. Apolek is despoiling the comfortable, resinous smell of the ideas of the local people. He is covering over their homey ideas with the poison of his beautiful lilies.

Gedali

In “Gedali,” Babel writes, “Here before me is the bazaar and the death of the bazaar. Slain is the rich soul of abundance. Rich padlocks hang on the stalls and the granite of the paving is as clean as the bald pate of a dead man.” “Gedali” is the story of the narrator’s wanderings as he awaits the Sabbath. He is wandering among many closed shops, but the description made me wonder if they were closed because of the impending Sabbath—on which no work can be done—or if they were closed for good. Perhaps they are closed for other reasons, because of pogroms, or because of the death of a way of life. The stalls are padlocked up, but the cleanness of the pavement denotes emptiness. There is no litter, no trace of humans having passed through. And the reference to the “pate of a dead man” makes it sound as though the area itself is dead and that it was closed up long ago. Whether these stores were locked up for eternity or merely for the Sabbath, Babel’s description of them enhances the strangeness and isolation of Gedali’s store. Babel likens the store to Dickens’s Curiosity Shop, but he didn’t need that reference to make the shop seem obscure and isolated. He had already done so with the detail of his description.

I know this use of atmospheric detail is something I tend toward in my own work. I admit it is often an unconscious effort in early drafts, but I can see that it is a powerful tool that I would do well to pay attention to as I revise. By being specific about the details I invest in the scenery, I can point the reader in very decided directions. If I am not specific, I can point the reader all over the place. I particularly enjoy this way of dealing with setting because it feels subtle but because it can have a strong effect on the way the story is read. It also gives meaning where there would not necessarily be any. For my novel, this is particularly important in descriptions of the river. A casual reader can enjoy the story without taking notice of this kind of detail, but a reader who cares to find meaning there can. I particularly liked where I felt Babel was going with his description in “Pan Apolek.”  It felt like he was describing his own subversion and that opened up for me the reading of many of the other stories in the collection. I think that is what I particularly enjoy about Russian writers is the layers of the writing. I am not yet skilled at investing layer upon layer of meaning into writing, and in some ways I don’t have the natural need because I am much less likely to be censored, but it is still something that intrigues me. I am interested in how the reader experiences satire and double entendres in writing. It always scares me a little that a reader who doesn’t get it could take the work in exactly the opposite way. I think that is at the root of my quandary over explaining and not explaining. I would hate to see a work used to the opposite end of its intent. Perhaps the atmospheric detail is one subtle way to direct the mind of even the most clueless reader (which I sometimes am).

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Red Cavalry and Other Stories from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Filed Under: Books, Eastern Europe Tagged With: atmospheric detail, Babel, book review, Crossing the Zbrucz, Gedali, Pan Apolek, Red Cavalry, Russian Literature

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Polska, 1994

Polska 1994

Clear Out the Static in Your Attic

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What I’m Reading

Isla's bookshelf: currently-reading

Birds of America
Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
by Jonathan Lethem
The Souls of Black Folk
The Souls of Black Folk
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Bomb: The Author Interviews
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by BOMB Magazine
On Writing
On Writing
by Jorge Luis Borges

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